Living Like Ed - (Page 83) Clean diesel has a lot less sulfur in it than traditional diesel Run Some Biodiesel fuel, and that’s a step in the COST: about $3.29 a right direction. Still, we’ve long gallon (close to the viewed “clean diesel” as an oxyprice of regular moron, because even the clean diesel) diesel is made from traditional crude oil products, so it’s just not as clean as so many other things available today, including natural gas. Electric cars are much cleaner, as are hybrids. However, there is something called biodiesel that’s cleaner than clean diesel—and, more important, it’s not refined from crude oil, like regular diesel fuel. Biodiesel is made from vegetable oils, animal fats, or recycled restaurant greases. You can even take vegetable oil, refine it slightly in your garage, and then run your car on it. That burns pretty clean. But keep in mind, on the plus and minus sides, even biodiesel emissions have some PM 2.5 and NOx, that is to say, oxides of nitrogen in it. If it’s made from vegetable oil, I imagine it’s less harmful than crude oil particles, but the exhaust still contains particulate matter that’s not good for your lungs. Simply stated, the tailpipe of a hybrid is cleaner than the tailpipe of a biodiesel car. The reason I mentioned biodiesel at all is because it’s not a refined product coming from crude oil. There’re none of the challenges that we get with Mideast oil and all the many forms of pollution that come from drilling and what have you. But I’m not strongly in favor of biodiesel either, because there’s an energy stream that’s involved in making biodiesel. It’s made from new corn and new soybeans, which are harvested with lots of John Deere equipment, which may or may not run on biodiesel. All the equipment used to harvest the crops—and all the fossil fuels used to make the fertilizers to grow the corn and the soybeans—tax the environment, too. Now, biodiesel can be good for U.S. farmers—it’s a great cash crop for them—and I want to support the farmers just like Willie Nelson does. I want clean fuel, and I want to help the farmers, too. But maybe we can help the farmers in other ways, by making biodiesel from AG (agricultural) waste. Grow the corn to feed people, and what have you got left? A big old cornstalk, a huge stalk with lots of cellulose in it that can be turned into biodiesel. Lots of other crops have AG 83 2: transportation
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